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Cooking with Linux - Learning...Disguised

If I seem dumbstruck, François, it's because I'm desperately trying
to decide what you possibly could be up to. Quoi? Of
course,
I know it's you. You're wearing a cheesy plastic nose, mustache and
pair of glasses. You're surprised? Of course, it's not a good disguise,
mon ami. Anyone who knows you, including everyone who
regularly
comes into this restaurant, would recognize you instantly. You could argue
that it makes you look different, but I can't decide whether you look like
Groucho Marx, a clown or Mr Potato Head. Oh, don't be offended. I happen
to be a big fan of both Groucho and Mr Potato Head. What about clowns,
you ask? To be honest, I've never been sure about clowns. I suppose I
should ask you for an explanation for all this, but we shall discuss it
later. Our guests are arriving as we speak.

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Chez Marcel!
Your tables are waiting, so please take your seats and
make yourselves comfortable. François, please
remove that silly disguise and head down to the wine cellar. Bring back
the 2002 Catena Malbec from Argentina. You'll find two cases in the south
wing next to the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic tablet you ordered from
Tablets Galore. Our guests, no doubt, will love this rich and intense
Malbec. Vite!

You'll have to forgive him, mes amis, he is an
excellent waiter,
but his mind occasionally works in very strange ways. Having accused
him of looking like Mr Potato Head, I'm reminded of a great Linux game
called Potato Guy, also known as
KTuberling. KTuberling, written
by Eric
Bischoff and others, is part of KDE's kdegames package, and as such,
it is easily installed from your distribution's repositories. This is a
computerized version of the potato-head game where you plug various
plastic eyes, ears, noses and hats in to a plastic potato to create a
funny-looking potato person (Figure 1). The official Mr Potato
Head is, of course, the famous store-bought version of this game,
sold by Hasbro. I must confess, mes amis, that I am
old enough to
remember when the potato wasn't included with the game. You used a real
potato. But, I digress.

Figure 1. KTuberling

The screenshot you see in Figure 1 is from the KDE 4 version of the
game. As you add various pieces to the potato guy, a friendly voice
speaks the names of those parts: “nose”,
“eye”, “spectacles”. Your
kids will have a ball dressing up the spud, rearranging things, trying
on different body parts and accessories. If you are in the middle of a
particularly great KTuberling masterpiece, you can
save your work and
return later. If you are happy with the results and want to share your
creation, you
have two other options. The first is to print the image by clicking Game
on the menu bar, and then Print (or click the Print icon). Alternatively,
click Game, and select Save As. From here, you can export the
image. KTuberling saves in the Targa image format (.icb
extension) by default,
but you can generate a different format by specifying the extension. For
example, to save in PNG format, save as
picture_name.png.

Spuds aren't your only choice, and there are, in fact, two different
potato styles: the default leaner spud and a somewhat plumper, more
classic tuber. Each tableau is referred to as a playground. Click
Playground on the menu bar, and you'll find a moonscape to populate with
spaceships, aliens and astronauts (Figure 2). Populate an ancient
Egyptian scene, visit a snow-covered hill and decorate some Christmas
trees, or start with a pizza crust and go wild with toppings.

Figure 2. The moon's
surface is just one of several playgrounds available to decorate.

Note:

If you have an artistic side, you may want to create
additional playgrounds for your own kids or to share with others. Click
Help on the KTuberling menu bar, and select KTuberling Handbook. In the
Technical References section, there are instructions for creating a
playground and publishing the results in a theme.

Given that I accused a certain waiter we all know of looking like a
clown, it seems appropriate that I mention a great old game for the kids.

Circus Linux, from New Breed Software, is a great, and
very silly,
little game that takes place inside the big top of a circus, and yes,
the main characters are clowns (Figure 3). At the top of the big top,
colorful balloons float back and forth. A band plays, and
a seal balances a ball on its nose. A juggling bear riding a unicycle
makes occasional appearances, and bouncy circus music in the background
completes the effect. Your job is to move a teeter-totter back and forth
to catch a bouncing clown (which, in turn, sends your clown flying). The
bouncing clowns, in turn, pop the floating balloons.

If it all sounds vaguely familiar, that's because Circus
Linux
is a clone of a really old Atari 2600 game called Circus
Atari,
albeit with better graphics. The whole bit about popping balloons is
further reminiscent of any of a hundred incarnations of the classic
Breakout. Circus Linux is a one-
or two-player game, which means you
can challenge your little clown to a game. The sound effects
and music can be turned off or on from the intro screen. Other options
include bouncing balloons and floating obstacles on which your clowns
can crash and fall to the ground.

I actually don't have anything that says “Groucho”, but you
already may be noticing a theme here. These programs, although they can be fun
for adults, are more for the younger Linux experts among us. The next
item on today's menu is called, appropriately, Childsplay, and
calling it a game may not be appropriate, as it is actually
a collection of games. Childsplay is an engine that handles plugins,
and each game is a plugin. The games are geared for an age range of
2–7. As such, they are all fairly simple for the readers of this
column
but somewhat more challenging for young children.

The plugin concept means that anyone can write games for Childsplay,
but at the time of this writing, the package consists of 11 different
games, a couple
of which qualify as great nostalgia trips for the parents out there. For
starters, there is a very simple game of Pong, slowed
down enough to
allow small players to move the paddles into position. You'll also find
an educational version of the classic Pac-Man game. In
this one, you help
the yellow smiley character chase down the letters that make up words
(Figure 4).

Figure 4. Chomp the
letters, eat your words, and move up a level.

A little side note before I continue—Childsplay runs in full-screen
mode by default, which is probably ideal for the little ones. You may,
however, want to run it in windowed mode, assuming you need to keep
an eye on logs or an IM chat while your child plays (childsplay
--window). The game starts with a string of icons representing
the
various games (Figure 5). Click on any of the icons, and you are
off to the races.

Figure 5. The main
Childsplay screen lists the available games. Simply click an icon to play.

Down along the bottom of the screen, there's a little stop sign that
you can click at any time to get out of the current game and return to
the top. There's also a scoreboard to keep track of how you are
doing. Most games come with a few different levels. When you successfully
complete the game, you are congratulated with a “Woo Hoo!” or
an explosion
proclaiming the game over.

There's a classic memory game
where you turn over cards looking for two that are the same (Figure
6). A second version of this game plays sounds rather than
showing pictures. The player then needs to remember which button played
what
sounds and match them up. Another version of the game displays a number of
pictures,
then plays a sound that your child must match to the picture. There are
falling letters that must be typed before they hit the bottom of the
screen, letters and numbers that must be clicked as they are spoken,
and some simple animal pictures that make the appropriate sounds when
clicked. Make sure you download the latest plugins to get an animal
flash card set that plays a large number of animal sounds along with
pictures and their position in the alphabet. For the budding pool shark,
Childsplay also comes with a very simple pool game that starts out with a
single ball, and then adds balls as the child becomes familiar with the
concept.

Figure 6. Childsplay
contains two simple memory games.

Childsplay is not complex, is certainly not fast-paced, and it requires no
high-end graphics card to operate. It is aimed at a very young audience,
a group that still appreciates wooden shape-matching puzzles and stacking
blocks. It's good, simple, educational fun for the younger set.

Along the same vein, but somewhat more polished, GCompris
is another collection of games for children, geared for ages 2–10.
GCompris is pronounced like the French words, J'ai
compris,
and it literally means, “I have understood”. When the game
starts, a
colorful screen with a left-hand sidebar lets kids (or their parents)
choose from a category of activities. These include reading, strategy,
math, amusements, puzzles, computer skills, discovery activities
and physical experimental activity (Figure 7). Clicking on any of
these choices brings up a list of related games or activities. Some
of these categories may have subcategories as well. Hover your mouse
pointer over the icons, and a description of the current choice
appears in the large blue bubble near the bottom of the main window. So,
how many games and activities are there? GCompris comes with more than 100
different activities, making it a must for your young penguinista.

Figure 7. GCompris'
start screen lets you select activities from different categories, such
as reading, numbers or puzzles.

Reading activities include games to identify letters, match pictures to
words, fill in missing letters and develop basic reading skills. Number
games help players learn to count, identify numbers and do basic math.
Those
new to computers will find activities to develop keyboarding and mousing
skills. There are lots of puzzles to work those brain cells, including
several matching and memory games. Games? Yes, there are just plain-old
games too. Kick a soccer ball into the goal, navigate a maze, go
parachuting
or pilot a submarine. In case you thought learning was anything but fun,
check out the cool Numbers in Order game (Figure 8),
which requires
young pilots to fly into numbered clouds as they learn to count (the
clouds do not necessarily appear in order).

Figure 8. Young helicopter pilots are challenged to count as they fly into
numbered
clouds floating by.

See? Learning is fun.

GCompris also has some surprisingly capable little applications hidden
beneath the surface, which sometimes mimic adult applications. For
instance, there
is a word processor, complete with built-in styles, ready to unleash
your child's inner author. A built-in instant-messaging application
means kids can chat with their friends (but they do have to be on the
same network, so a classroom environment works well here). There's even
a great little vector drawing application (Figure 9), just like Mommy
and Daddy's, except more fun.

Figure 9. GCompris
has a powerful, yet simple vector drawing program.

This is the time, mes amis, where I must say, enough
kidding
around, closing time is here. Stay a little longer though, and the adults
among you can enjoy another glass of wine before you head out. François
will happily refill your glasses one more time before we say our final
good-nights. While you sip that last glass, try another game or decorate
another tuber, and remember that you're never too old to enjoy some simple,
silly fun.

Raise your glasses, mes amis, and let us all drink to
one
another's health. A votre santé! Bon appétit!

Marcel Gagné is an award-winning writer living in Waterloo,
Ontario. He is the author of the Moving to Linux
series of books from
Addison-Wesley. He also makes regular television appearances as Call for
Help's Linux guy and every month on radio's Computer America show. Marcel
is also a pilot, a past Top-40 disc jockey, writes science fiction and
fantasy, and folds a mean Origami T-Rex. He can be reached via e-mail at
[email protected]. You can discover lots of other
things (including
great Wine links) from his Web site at www.marcelgagne.com.